EPTStarCraft's been a part of my life for nearly fifteen years. I wasn't there since the complete beginning... my dad and brother were. But I came pretty close, and I still remember picking up the game at the age of 4, starting my run through the campaign that would take years to finish, me on my laptop hacking away at the Zerg on the Norad II mission with attacks of exactly 12 Wraiths at a time, while behind me my brother was progressing through the latter levels of the UED campaign.
I still remember playing a 2v1 with my brother, both of us Terrans, holding out against the Zerg and winning with what we thought was an armada... my victory fleet plus his ground forces. He was by far the better player, and luckily he spawned on the semi-island with the Zerg and bunkered up, while I got the far island and took his time (almost every game my family played at the time was this map)
I still remember coming to school, and not having many friends to talk to in elementary school - partially because I was still learning English, partially because I spent all my free time learning math so I came off as an autistic prick - but one of the few I did have also played StarCraft with his brother, and we'd spend all our free time in class talking about the game, the different heroes, making little sculptures of Raynor/Fenix, and so on.
I still remember learning about how control groups work, and suddenly being able to coordinate much larger armies, from multiple directions, and even win my first few games on Bnet! Also not quite finish the campaign, but make a lot more progress than I had before. With my helpful Prima Strategy guide, I too learned how to beat the most intense mission of the vanilla campaign, and launch a massive attack with 10 whole control groups of units. I ended up abusing the crap out of the helpfully provided DT's, taking a bunch of expansions across the south, making an air fleet from the top and a ground/air mix from the bottom come together in one glorious collision and take down the Overmind for good. And then when I learned that in Episode IV, you could make your own Dark Templar, I was flooroed.
I still remember how I'd leave to play Halo, or Battlefront, or I'd actually make some friends at school for once, or play Halo again. I thought I'd seen the last of the game after a particularly agonizing loss where the Protoss opponent mind controlled my drone and managed to beat my one race with his two. And I remember the moment I came back stronger than ever.
I still remember burning account after account after account because of how bad I was compared to the iCCup crowd, and even the /clearstats function didn't save me. I remember how awesome it felt when I won my first ever 1v1 on iCCup by 12 hatching and holding off a bunker rush with a few clutch spines and an unsustainable number of lings. I didn't ladder on that account for a while just so I could hold that 1100 rating in pride for the rest of the season.
I still remember the days I spent with Combat and the rest of Team EX in 2009, playing SC2 nearly 12 hours a day. Laddering from 2 to 7, then practice games with my friends and any available clanmates from 7 to 11, then fun stuff like BGH race wars, where we'd all spawn as random, scout, and ally the people of our own race, hoping the three best guys in the game weren't all Zerg. Every waking moment I wasn't playing SC2, I was thinking about the game, the UMS's, the maps that I was making, the community I found...
I still remember stumbling upon this site and thinking I was a BAMF. I still think I'm a BAMF, but now I know I'm a BAMF. And my narcissism came from my musical ambitions, which came from my passions, which came directly from everything I've learned playing this game and interacting with the community. The awesome threads that were posted here and then got closed. It was a more tight-knit group before the explosion of 2010-11 when SC2 came out. Things seemed a bit more lax. I still miss that kind of atmosphere, and sometimes I'll go back and read threads from 2008-9-10 and remember how things used to be. I guess they were different before that too, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Maybe I'll finish that 10 years a pianist blog I started but never completed. Has a lot to do with Brood War.
I still remember hitting C+, and starting my long journey downward, but knowing that at one point I had players by the balls from my multipronged lategame macro attacks. I always loved the lategame, and I loved ZvP so much I switched to Protoss so I could play it from the other side. I think ZvT was more fun than PvT, but PvP was magnitudes more interesting to me than ZvZ. And of course I could pick Zerg if the other guy was a toss.
I still remember playing Brood War on July 26, 2010, and at the end of a long night of BGH, Heaven's Final Hour, testing out some new maps I made, and a bunch of other fun stuff, I said bye to some of the closest friends I've never seen. I found one after that on Facebook, but the rest I never saw again. It was especially true with Heaven's Final Hour - you saw a bunch of the regulars time and time again, knew who was good in which role... I did a really good job as Jesus, except I always lost Jesus time and time again. But that's just to make Hell overconfident. The Heaven Besieged crew of SC2 is pretty tight-knit as well, but the long remake times and the more hidden-away chat channels don't make it quite as fun as HFH was.
I still remember a particularly bad rejection I got towards the end of freshman year of high school, and that one in particular hit me hard. Like looking back, it's pretty much whatever, but back then it was a pretty fucking big deal right? And I remember how I turned those days of overwhelming sorrow into happiness, for during that time, the greatest tournament SC2 has ever seen - TSL3 - was on! And my girl troubles faded away compared to fan favorites and top Koreans getting knocked out by nobodies - who the fuck is ThorZain? The guy who knocked out Nony, MC, and 2-0'd Fruitdealer, that's who! And the finals all came down to a fantastic showdown between ThorZain and Naniwa, where nearly everything under the sun happened, but in a clutch engagement, Naniwa slipped in the positioning of his units and lost the game. He'd go on to repeat the same mistake four years later against Showtime in WCS Challenger, but back then he was much more mannered about the loss.
I still remember getting all the friends I could into this game. My total was about 40 people between 2010 and 2013. Then with Heart of the Swarm I hooked a bunch of people onto Starter Edition. But by that point, eSports was becoming dominated by MOBAs, and a year or so later, CounterStrike. But a lot of that core of SC2 players I built up remained, and some of them still play.
I still remember suffering with Infestor Broodlord, especially against my dick of a friend who was both a) a dick, and b) really good with infestor broodlord. In the end, I have to thank him, he's the one who pushed me to keep practicing and maintaining PvZ, and macro PvZ, as my best matchup instead of abandoning it and focusing on PvT or midgame PvZ or something.
I still remember all the new friends I've met, guy and girl alike, and how passionately I tried... and still try... to convince them that StarCraft II is the greatest game of all time. I show them clutch plays, build up the storylines that I create in my head and give them a reason to care. So instead of one nerd at his computer, it's a small group of people rallying behind Naniwa, or Snute, or Jaedong, or Scarlett, or Polt, as they rally their forces to take on the armies of darkness, advancing through qualifier after tournament after tournament after qualifier to take home the big bucks and appear at the biggest tournament of the year. I remember all the relationships I've gotten into and out of, with one of the few constants being making room for my esports addiction.
I still remember the HotS beta and how everyone thought Protoss was fucked. I remember how they took out the Warhound, made proxy nex a thing, and how upon release Heart of the Swarm was astonishing. And I remember those dark days when infestor broodlord and warhound was like a rock and a hard place, and now with HotS in a near perfect state of balance and LotV already starting to shine underneath the dirt of rapidly shifting unit roles and capabilities, I know that all the people predicting LotV to be a steaming pile of shit are going to be completely wrong about what they expected from the game.
I still remember each and every time I thought I was done with StarCraft. And each time I realize I'm never done with this game. The ride never ends. I'm here forever.
#WhyILoveSC2
